Discourse as a Development Strategy

Can having the conversation change they way people act? Is it like learning a new language, once you give meaning to something it exists? Once it exists, it can be manipulated or acted upon? Can we make the Thomas Theorem real?

“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”

We usually hear about the unintended consequences of transmitting ‘ideas’ into different social systems. For example: communities only understanding they are poor after aid workers explain to them they are poor and thus have rights and needs. See the work of Stacy Pigg on Nepal.

But what if beneficial reforms, rendered ‘stuck’ by politics and frames of thinking could be ‘unstuck’ through plain old conversation? What if discourse was a development strategy?